All of them, depending on what I am playing at the time. Some are better for some purposes than others - if I had more money, I would buy more, especially ones I currently can not play, If I had more time to live in good health, I would learn more of them.

Mandolin (plus its close relatives) (my primary instrument): because I always loved it (my Dad played mandolin) and there was always a mandolin around the house so have been playing it since my early teens.

Guitar: Because I became interested in it through rock n' roll around age 10/11 and because it's so versatile.

Guitar because I was a kid and everybody and his dog played guitar (and still does). Good for accompaniment.

Mandolin because once I'd heard Barney McKenna, John Sheahan, Andy Irvine, Bill Monroe, Sam Bush and Tim O'Brien I was hooked. Also because it is such a great little instrument. Light, portable, and the common folk, old time and bluegrass major scale shapes just fall so conveniently under the fingers.

Whistle because of John Sheahan, Micho Russell, Paddy Moloney and Liam O'Flynn. They're so cheap and portable why the hell would anyone not play one (Same goes for harmonica)?

Fiddle because it seemed natural to try it after mandolin, and it's a wonderful instrument. Shame I'm not a wonderful player.

I started playing harmonica / mouth organ at about age 7, and still enjoy playing today , having recently discovered the delights of self-accompanying on Shruti Box ! Secondly, as an ex -RN drummer, I adapted quite well, I feel,to the Cajon,which I started playing about a year ago ; I love playing it,and it makes a great seat in a crowded session ! Thirdly----well, again in my RN days,I played the banjo,both ashore in Lee-on-Solent & Gosport,and aboard carrier HMS Eagle (1966-69),but I stopped that in the 1980s,and today I concentrate on trying to play tunes ( Irish,French,Dutch,Belgian,English) on guitar. I also play "Oeufs Tremblants" & Squeaky Hammer !!

I like to play recorder and flute because I feel that I'm not playing IT; it's playing ME. These instruments merely modify my breath, and so they are similar to singing.

I also play piano because I enjoy the interplay between the right and left hands. Sometimes it seems as if my left hand has a mind of its own. People will ask me how I played the accompaniment in a certain passage, and all I can say is "I don't know. It does it by itself."

I wanted to be able to sing and play ... The guitar was played by all my friends so it seems to be my only choice. We did have a piano at home but I never took lessons. My sister took lessons and I was told we can't afford to do more kids with lessons. Taught myself guitar instead and had a few friends show me some chords ... In a way I am thankful because I can't carry a piano camping

Aagh ! 'Tis a fun thing that I first encountered in Wanchai,Hong Kong !! Basically, it is a childish toy (so therefore beloved of Jolly Jack ) which when shaken or struck against something (usually someone's head !) emits a very silly squeaky noise ! This can seem to be much funnier than it actually is after 6 or 7 pints of San Miguel or Tiger ! --- I regularly use mine when we do our version of "Those Were The Days" as per Mary Hopkins ; immediately after Karen (Wild Flying Dove) has sung the line " Once again There Came Familiar Laughter" or whatever ( I forget ), I administer a brief but very un-subtle SH solo, usually to the audiance's amusement.

Guitar was my chosen instrument because there was one in the house. Never had a piano or violin or anything else I might try, but my elder brother had a guitar, and I'd seen this cool kid at school playing one (although, looking back, it had to be the crappiest, most beat-up nylon stringer imaginable) and I thought, "That's the very thing for me!!" Sadly the "cool kid at school" featured in a recent "Obit" thread and reminded me how I ended up being a guitarist.

It is interesting what draws us to a particular instrument. There are certain instruments that I'm surprised that anyone would want to play; the trombone, for example. But that's just me! I don't think I could be satisfied with just one instrument. I started with guitar which is great for lots of things but I started to yearn to play a wind instrument; something with sustain and a wide range of timbres.

Well, I wanted to be able to join in with more musical friends, but I lack any musical skills, hence the washboard, kazoo, and occasional spoons, none played well either! It's always embarassing when asked what key I sing in. (Not only unknown but unrecognisable)

Guitar and banjo - because a school teacher (Christian?? Brother) gave me a school report which said "Musically speaking this pupil is dead from the neck up" and suggested that the banjo, being the "Instrument of Satan" was all I would ever get to play -. The guitar came a couple of years later as I wanted to improve my musically dead brain. I have since managed, despite all this to have a reasonably successful part time career in various bands and still despite advancing years manage to perform lots of songs & tunes in local folk clubs. So - brother **** stick that in your pipe (he always smoked one) etc

Guitar...because most of my musical heroes played the guitar...and because it's quite portable, and it looks beautiful too.

I think keyboards are marvelous, but they're not nearly as handy in some respects as the guitar. From the point of view of producing music, however, they are unmatched. Nothing else can equal a keyboard that is really well played.

1) When I was little, I was a fan of the singing cowboys who all played it. Later, I discovered Country music, back when it was worth discovering, one of my first steps in annoying my parents.

2) My parents tried me to get me to learn on several instruments, but I wanted to try guitar, and they said no, they wanted me to learn a "real" instrument. Obviously, they hadn't heard of Segovia, of Django, or etc. I was a teenager, so naturally that made me want to play guitar all the more, and other instruments all the less.

3) When I was in college ('59 - '63) it was virtually mandatory.

4) I've always sung a lot, even when begged to stop, and it's the best instrument for accompanying singing that's even reasonably easy to transport (leaving out commercial air, of course).

Like bubblyrat, I bought a harmonica when I was 7, because it made noise, I had no idea what it was, and it was "less than a dollar."

When I was 12 and ready to move up to a school that had a band, my mother decided I should be in the band. My dad invited "some guy" over who had an instrument for sale. "Guy" brought his son along to demonstrate. Dad asked "how much." Guy said "$40." Dad said (to me) "you're a saxophone player."

It was pretty easy to see why "guy" sold the sax, because by the time I went to bed that night I played it better than his kid did, but the next day at school they told me I needed to get "the book," which I did on the way home. That was the end of my "formal music education," although I played the original tenor, and later bought myself an alto and a clarinet before "studies intervened" and I dropped out of the Concert Band after my 2d year of university.

Many years later, I fell in with a bunch of drunken bums who insisted we should all go to "festival" and while there I picked up a few penny whistles - because they were cheap, and I was told that I played "passably(?)" for a couple of years.

When the urge to have "something better" hit me, I bought a mandolin "for festival." The first year I took it to the fest, I got drunk enough one night to think I played it, and several others in the vicinity were drunk enough to agree; but the next day I found it rather difficult to make it do anything very musical, so it was not well used until about 10 years later when I acquired my (current) "trophy bride" who insisted I should "play with her," and the mando came back out of retirement. I now have three mandos, and play occasionally, despite frequent requests that I find something else to do.

Reduced to basic principles, I still play saxophone but I do it on a mandolin because my two saxophones are unplayable due to lack of maintenance and they'd be hard to play anyway since all my teeth fell out several years ago. I also do, rather rarely, mess with my harmonicas and p'whistles, but it's all strictly recreational - when the mood and circumstance are compatible.

All of the instruments I play are because I love the sound they mnake in other people's hands and, on a good day, in my own hands - and because in their own way they all feel *right*, part of my self-expression, always a pleasure and never a chore. Somebody further up said 'the right instruments find you', and I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Whistle because my sister gave me one of her cast-offs and I found I could play it, which led on to low whistle, flute and piccolo.

Bouzouki because I fancied learning a stringed/chords instrument, and loved the sound of the bouzouki above that of the guitar.

English concertina because of a couple of EC players I knew/know, and because of the sheer Victorian steam-punk complexity of it.

Rauschpfife because of the New London Consort at the Roundhouse in the early 80s, playing a Praetorius 4-part dance tune on rauschpfeifen.

Played guitar for 40 years - chords mainly, not a lot of picking. Then had a breakdown and about five years when I neither played nor sang. When I came to pick up the guitar again, I couldn't play it - chubby fingers had become slightly arthritic too. Went looking for something easier and found the autoharp. Holding down a chord with one finger really appealed to me. And I am now more musical on the harp than I ever was on guitar, would never have dreamed of doing a guitar solo but can solo on the autoharp. "If you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need"

As a youngster doing a poorly paid apprentiship, I found I could earn loads of dosh playing accordion for dancing, so I bought one. Years later, the band I was playing with didn't want two box players but did want a guitarist, so I bought one. I call it skills through necessity ;)

Voice is easy to carry and my mother taught me to sing at the same time she taught me to speak.

Uke (I don't have one right now) because my dad taught me to tune and play one when I was aged 6 or 7 yrs with hands too small for the family guitar. Piano not so much any more because I don't play accurately despite lessons and teaching myself to play by ear. Yet I like having it play from time to time--there are a few things that have survived in my hands despite years of non-use.

Guitar because both my parents played to accompany themselves, and I wanted to do that too. Banjo because mom played and I LOVED the sound of it. I continued because because there are usually plenty of guitars already.

I'm not sure any of the above were chosen so much as acquired by circumstance. Cello is probably my one chosen instrument, purchased because I love the sound of it, then I sought out a teacher. It's great for jams when there are already plenty of guitars & banjos, but I'm not always up to hauling it around.

Handbells because they looked amazing and I wanted to try them.

Voice is what I play most regularly followed by handbells. Cello, banjo & guitar fell by the wayside when I had health issues and literally couldn't pick them up for several years. But they're coming back as I can eke out callus-building time from commitments to vocal quartet, chorus, handbell choir, handbell duet, husband and dogs.

I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to play the trombone! It was the first instrument I learned to play after quitting piano lessons when my parents didn't make me take them anymore. Not that I didn't like piano but I was never particularly good at it and I found I could be the best trombone player in the school band with almost no practice. Since then, the banjo has chosen me and is definitely my instrument of choice ever since.

The very first instrument I touched - at my grandparents' house when I was very small - was a piano. When I was about 14 I bought harmonicas - and what a revelation it was when a friend showed me how to play it crossed. Welcome to the blues and Sonny Terry.

I started playing guitar at age 20 because that's when I could afford one - having fallen in love with the music of Django, Donegan, Leadbelly and many others. Started playing tenor banjo about 40 years ago after spotting a s/h one for sale in John Hornby Skewes shop in London. Then tenor guitar... ukulele... mandolin. A fiddle about two years ago.

Strange how things come full circle. It was learning more complex chords to play jazz that then opened up the piano.

After a few uninspiring years of childhood lessons on piano and trumpet, I chose the 5 string banjo at age 12 because:

1. It sounded cool

2. Dave Guard of the Kingston Trio played one and I wanted to be ready to step in when he left (didnt work out)

3. None of my friends played one, so I figured I would be in demand for group playing (which worked out better)

About 4 years later I started playing guitar because:

1. It sounded cool

2. Peter and Paul of PPM played one and I wanted to be ready ...

3. It seemed more versatile than banjo

4. My personality seemed a bit more in line with accompaniment than lead playing and guitar seemed better suited to that (I hadnt heard Doc Watson or other accoustic "lead" guitar players at that point)

5. Since no one I knew played banjo I found it a little hard to progress too far on my own after getting through Pete Seeger's basic book(ie no one to trade licks with etc), where as all my guitar playing friends were happy to show me everything they knew.

Over the course of the next few years I completed the transition from banjo to guitar and have been happy with that choice for the last 40 years, but once in a while I still get the old five string out

Ah, I forgot about learning flute in high school, chosen because I liked it almost as much as oboe, which 2 others beat me out on, spoke up faster--unfortunately for me the school only owned 2 of them and my family didn't have money to buy one on spec. I still pull out my flute (mom scrimped to buy it after she figured I'd likely stick with it) once in a while. Hmm, maybe I will get it out more often...in my spare time.

And djembe which I'm only barely beginning to play, chosen because I LOVE its many sounds and sensations. I was in my late teens the first time I saw people jamming on drums and others dancing to it...WOW, that was a life-changing experience! But I only bought one fairly recently, guess I was chicken.

The instrument that was the most fun for me to learn to play was a harmonica. My brother and I had only one between us and we both learned to play sitting after supper in our big kitchen with the door closed between us and the living room where the rest of the family were. (I have no idea what the family thought about our musical ability- I don't remember anyone ever commenting on it.)

As the fire in the woodstove died and the kitchen cooled my brother sat on the open oven door and I sat on a chair facing him. One of us would play a tune, the other would squeal, Oh yes! Let me try it too! and we would hand it over, back and forth, back and forth, until Mom would come in and tell us it was bedtime.

It was great fun, and we did the same thing with the 'Tonette', a plastic recorder type of thing. Too bad we never had more than one instrument.

Come to think of it, we learned guitar the same way about 10 years later. He learned chords first, I learned to pick first.

I chose Shakey Egg as it was a quick instrument to learn. I only needed a dozen or so lessons before I could join in at my local weekly session and therefore be entitled to the free beer that the landlord provides for us skilled musicians ... yum yum!

I listened to a friend tell me for a year how awesome (concert) percussion was, so I played that when I was in school. When I picked up folk music on my own, the bodhran seemed the obvious thing to do...